Poll: Hillary's popularity soars

Michelle Obama and Ann Romney are soaring high in personal popularity compared to their husbands President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, while Hillary Clinton, another prominent woman in the American political sphere, has hit a 20-year high in her favorability rating, according to a new poll.

Michelle Obama’s favorability rating stands at 69 percent (not as good as her best rating of 77 percent in March 2009) — which is 13 points higher than her husband’s, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found. Her unfavorability rating is 24 percent — 16 points lower than the president’s.

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Meanwhile, Ann Romney is viewed favorably by 40 percent of the public, 5 points better than her husband’s recent 35 percent, and seen negatively by 30 percent, which is 17 points lower than her husband’s unfavorable rating.

While Ann Romney’s positive rating is notably lower than Michelle Obama’s, the poll points out that may have to do with her shorter tenure in public life, as 30 percent of those surveyed said they are still undecided about the former first lady of Massachusetts (only 7 percent said they were undecided about Obama).

Meanwhile, Clinton’s 65 percent favorability rating is just a few percentage points behind the first lady’s, while her unfavorability rating stands at 27 percent. According to the survey, this is Clinton’s best grade to date since she entered the national stage some 20 years ago, and a dramatic turnaround since 2008, when her favorable-unfavorable was 44 percent-54 percent.

Other notable details from the poll include Obama’s whopping 95 percent favorability among African-Americans. Also, 40 percent of both men and women view Romney favorably — a notable contrast to her husband’s lag among females, who gave the Republican candidate a 17-point lower favorability rating than the men did last week.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted April 18-22 among 1,008 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.